Category: Career Goals & Careers
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#230 Five Keys to MBA Admissions Success with N’doli Jean-Hugues Cherif, Insead MBA ’26
Darren talks with N’doli Jean-Hugues “Cherif,” a French and Ivorian candidate who gained admission to both INSEAD and London Business School’s MBA programs. Cherif, an older full-time MBA candidate with diverse experience across five roles – including audit, management consulting, investment banking and infrastructure project finance in the public and private sector – shares his…
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#229 AI’s Impact on MBA Careers: An Insider’s Perspective
Darren confronts his own “AI anxiety” with Sabine King, Director of the Career Accelerator at the prestigious Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM) at University of New South Wales (UNSW). Together, they explore the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the demand for MBA graduates, the evolving strategies of career services, and how leading business…
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#228 3 Exercises to Design Your Life & Find Best Fit MBA Programs
Darren shares 3 design thinking exercises from Bill Burnett and Dave Evan’s Designing Your Life that will help you build a joyful life – and find MBA programs you are excited about.
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#221 Excellent Advice for Living (and MBA Applications!)
Inspired by Kevin Kelly’s Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I Knew Earlier, Darren shares 10 bits of life wisdom that could materially improve your chances of getting into business school and building a successful career.
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#218 Lessons from Listeners (Vol. 2): Drawing a Roadmap for Admissions, Prioritizing Conversations, Prematurely Applying, Being Strategic Yet Flexible
Darren shares more hard-earned application lessons from four listeners (now graduated MBAs): drawing a roadmap for the admissions team, prioritizing conversations when picking schools, “prematurely applying” and being strategic yet flexible
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#209 How Wharton Reviews MBA Applicants & More with Thomas Caleel, Former Head of MBA Admissions for Wharton
Thomas Caleel, former Head of MBA Admissions for Wharton, takes us behind the scenes of how an Admissions Director builds a class and what he or she looks for from applicants. What are the key qualities and characteristics that admissions committees look for? How did Thomas’ team review 8,000 applicants per year? And how can you…
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#199 10 Application Lessons from 10 Years of Touch MBA
We’re nearing 200 episodes of Touch MBA. Feeling nostalgic, Darren reflects on 10 lessons for applicants from 10 years of Touch MBA!
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#197 Pivoting to Vietnam & Breaking into EdTech with Tony Ngo, Harvard Business School ’08
Tony Ngo, HBS ’08, shares how he used the MBA to explore a career in Vietnam, first in finance, and then as an edtech entrepreneur with Everest Education.
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6 MBA Programs to Launch Your Career in Social Impact (2022)
We’ve identified six standout b-schools that complement their strong curricula with robust co-curricular opportunities in order to expose students to the social impact, social entrepreneurship, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) industries.
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#196 How I Got Into UC Berkeley Haas MBA (and HBS, Wharton, UCLA too!) & Breaking into Product Management with Bridget Pujals
Bridget Pujals shares lessons learned from her MBA application journey, culminating in admits to Harvard, Wharton ($70K scholarship), UCLA Anderson ($100K scholarship), and Berkeley Haas ($175K scholarship).
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#193 Hiring Trends & Salaries for Business School Graduates from GMAC’s Corporate Recruiters Survey
What are corporate recruiters looking for from business graduate students? And how do median MBA salaries compare to those of specialized business masters programs? Darren shares 3 interesting findings from GMAC’s Corporate Recruiters Survey. This way, you can think more like an admissions officer, and put forward your strongest application.
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Our Favorite MBA Application Tools
After 11 years advising over 4,000 MBA applicants, we recommend the following providers for GMAT prep, admissions consulting, student loans, and more.
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#171 3 Positioning Strategies for Job Hoppers
Darren shares three strategies you can use to mitigate your track record of job hopping. How can you present this as an asset to your target MBA programs?
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#168 Live the Questions
Here is my unsolicited advice to friends in their 20s searching for purpose, work, home and satisfaction. More than anything, this episode is a reminder to myself to love and live the questions – cause they never go away.
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#162 Don’t Trust Your Gut for Career Decisions with Dr. Gleb Tsipursky
Dr. Gleb Tsipursky has dedicated his professional life to helping others overcome cognitive biases and make better decisions. In this episode, Darren and Dr. Gleb discuss ways MBA applicants can make better, unbiased decisions when it comes to business school and their careers.